Il laboratorio intellettuale di Bruno Trentin (2001-2006)

A selection of Trentin’sdiaries from 2001-2006, some unpublished pages on his political activity in the European Parliament and the elaboration of The Freedom Comes First: these works allow us to enter Bruno Trentin's intellectual laboratory and to follow, from the inside, the editing of the essays and the realization of the volume. Public and private intertwine in a melee with a heavy depression, which demands to "cope with death by accelerating the production of writings that can clarify or conclude my testimony." The notes on the Italian and international situation after September 11th, 2001, the American intervention in Iraq in 2003 and the European Constitution project are significant. The section is completed by some coeval political interventions, including the last article of July 2006 on meritocracy and the affirmation of individual rights.

Saggio introduttivo. Critica del fordismo e dinamiche del potere nella ricerca transnazionale di Bruno Trentin (1926-2007)

The essay traces Bruno Trentin's political biography and intellectual research from a transnational perspective. Through the work notebooks (1953-1995), the diaries on the CGILGeneral Secretary (1988-1994), the activity in the European Parliament (1999-2004) and the following two years, the elaboration of The Freedom Comes First(2005) is rooted in a long term criticism against the subalternity of the communist and social-democratic culture to the Fordist model. It is also based on the necessity of a libertarian socialism, based on the centrality of the person and on the unavoidable link between work and knowledge. What stands outis the originality of Trentin's political thought, the intellectual circuit in which his research is developed and his vision of a federal Europe in the international system following the Cold War and the aftermath of September 11th, 2001.

La libertà viene prima. La libertà come posta in gioco nel conflitto sociale

"What is left of socialism ?" This question, too, must be answered in a "project left." Certainly, socialism is no longer an accomplished or well-known model of society to tend tothrough daily political action. It can only be conceived as an uninterrupted search for the liberation of the person and his capacity for self-realization. It should be possible introducing elements of socialism into concrete society such as: equal opportunities, community welfare, control over the organization of work, the diffusion of knowledge as an instrument of freedom. This would overcome, from time to time, the contradictions and failures of capitalism and the market economy, making the person, and not only the classes, the keystone of civil coexistence. (From the cover of the first edition).

Postfazione. Il socialismo di Bruno Trentin come liberazione della persona

Through the commentary on a particularly interesting period taken from the Introduction to La libertà viene prima, the author intends to focus on Bruno Trentin's idea of socialism. Giovanni Mari underlines how this idea foresees the critique of four theses of the modern socialist tradition: 1) socialism is not a model of society, but a continuous process; 2) in our company the company does not constitute a world in itself; 3) the socialization of property does not solve the problems of democracy; 4) the center of civil coexistence is not constituted by the class but by the person. And four positive theses: 1) the form of political action does not foresee two separate times, first the seizure of power and then the reforms; 2) the measure of society is the freedom of the person; 3) the goal of the socialist process is the self-realization of the person; 4) everything begins with the person who works, that is, with the battle for freedom in work.

Appendice. Bruno Trentin e il dibattito costituzionale europeo

In the context of an article published in2005on foreign readings on the evolution of social law, the distinguished French scholar Alain Supiot connects the elaboration of The Freedom Comes First to the European constitutional debate of the 2000s. Trentin's reflections on the inseparable link between work and knowledge in the third industrial revolution and on the centrality of the person for a political reform project based on the revival of the European social model and on the role of a federal Europe in the governance of globalization are adequately underlined. The transnational dimension of Bruno Trentin's political thought is confirmed in the field of labour law and in the debate on the European social model and the future of Europe